On the second one

In March 2026 we ran the first Norwegian AI Championship open to anyone. A million kroner, real technical challenges, automated scoring, and a leaderboard that did not care where you went to school.

It worked. That is the part worth saying plainly, once, before moving on.

What it proved was smaller and more useful than a prize: there are people here who can build under pressure, and almost none of them were visible to each other beforehand. The competition was a talent discovery engine wearing a competition’s clothes. It found people. That was always the point.

The situation it was built for has not improved. Sweden has the tech giants. Denmark is producing unicorns. Finland keeps moving. Norway keeps producing capable engineers and keeps failing to connect them to work worth staying for. A championship does not fix that. It does make it measurable.

So: a second one.

We are not describing it yet. The format will change. The challenges will be harder, and they will be written for people who arrive with agents rather than in spite of them — 2026 was the last year that was an interesting distinction. Some things that were open will close. Some things that were closed will open.

What we will say now is the date, because you should be able to plan around it.